With all the talk about Floyd

It reminds me of hurricane Fran. Many of you may not have been around here then. It came through on September 6th 1996. I will never forget that night. I'm a fan of bad weather. I can't explain why but when it snows I'm more excited than the kids. When a hurricane is coming I watch in anxious excitement as it approaches. But after that night I never want to go through another hurricane.

It pretty much followed I-40 up from the coast and hit 4042 area hard.
There's a neighborhood out that way on Cornwallis Rd called Pleasant Woods. It actually had woods on September 5th of 1996. The next day they were gone.

The neighborhood I lived in was hit hard too. I lost 36 significant sized trees that night. The one that hurt the most was the dogwood I planted in 92 when my first daughter was born.

I remember looking out the window in the middle of the night and seeing the pine trees bent to the ground. The weird part was they were bent in different directions. The wind was constant. There was lightning everywhere. Every house in my neighborhood had roof damage except for mine.

The power went out at 8:30 that night. It was almost two weeks before it came back on. The area was a war zone. It was so hot the next few days. We had a well so no power meant no water. No fridge, no food. You had to have cash ahead of time because none of the ATM's worked without power.
Ice was like gold. I sent my now ex-wife and daughter to my now ex in-laws in Cary. After a couple of days I gave in and went over so I could shower. They had water and their power came on after two or three days. After a few hours there I couldn't stand it anymore so I got up, drove towards Virginia and bought all of the ice from a convenience store about an hour north of Raleigh. It filled my truck. I drove back to Clayton. By this time it was 1:00AM but I went door to door giving my neighbors a bag of ice. You would think I had given them life they were so grateful. People were desperate.

Earlier in the day me and a truck load of neighbors went to another neighborhood that had been hit extremely hard and helped a friend of mine get enough trees out of the way so he could get out. One of my neighbors got something in his eye and couldn't get it out. Well, there was an eye doctor living in the neighborhood and we went to his house. We literally had to climb over about 100 yards of downed trees in his driveway to get to his door. He helped my neighbor and got the debris out of his eye, We asked about payment and he said "If you find ice please bring me some".

So I took the last two bags, climbing back over the trees at 2:00AM and gave them to him and his family. He was in tears.

For weeks all you would hear would be chain saws and generators. I have a generator as a result. Bought it right off of the back of the truck at Home Depot in Cary about 5 days after the storm. I used it then. Now I start it about once a year, but it doesn't get much use.

Anyway, if you haven't been through one, take my word it's no fun. Imagine so lights for miles and miles, not even street lights, no water, no stores, no food.

This is getting long sorry. I'll stop now.

 

My family is in probably one of the few lines of business (tree removal)that don't mind a hurricane once in while (unless people or houses get hurt of course!) After Fran, my dad was so busy - he worked 7 days a week for 3 months straight!

 

I certainly remember Fran. I was due to get married on 09/07/96.

When God sends a hurricane to your wedding, it might be a sign that he's trying to tell you something.....

 

so can you elaborate some more????

 

Don't Care, our experience was similar. No power, no water, no ice. No way to refill prescriptions (I just don't think any of us really understood how to be properly prepared for Fran). The first day after, neighbors came together, without even realizing how bad the entire area had been hit, and joked about maybe having to be without power a couple of days. Instead, it was two weeks. We also have a generator now and used it during the bad ice storm around 2001 as well as when Floyd came through. We now monitor the weather closer and make sure we are prepared.

 

Same story here. Nearly two weeks with no power and so many trees lost. Because we lost power early, I was running out to the car to listen to the radio. I remember peeking out the door and hearing "the train". The next day a long row of trees along the side of the road were snapped in half, all the way down the row. It was then that I realized just how dangerous it was. .. next time I'll definitely be better prepared for anything resembling a hurricane!

And my next house will have a basement!

 

We wound up getting married a week later on the 14th. We'd catered the whole thing ourselves, so all that food went towards the neighborhood "let's clean out our freezers and eat before the food goes bad" block party. Our wedding cake had been a gift, it had to be eaten.

We seperated two years later, ironically when Bonnie came through.

I'm just saying....if you pray and ask God for a sign if you're doing the right thing by getting married, and He sends a hurricane to your wedding.....well.....there's your sign......

 

:cheers: was just curious how it worked out... were you hard headed back then??? or was it the rebel in ya.... :jester:

 

I lived in a different part of NC but helped rescue many stranded people. My biggest memory was assisting a Mexican fellow that was trapped by a tree that had fallen on his trailer while he was on the throne.

Embarrassing moment for the guy but he was happy to survive.

 

Is this like the Seal story or is it true.... :jester::jester:

 

Yes, I was pretty hard headed........I didn't like it when my husband wanted to sleep with another woman....lol...

 

I remember Fran very clearly, similar to Slate's story I sat in the basement holding my brand new twin boys (who had just been born on August 19th), as a tornado went right over the house. It was one of the scariest nights ever for me.

 

dang pig... 8)8)

 

We lived in Clayton at the time. Isn't it strange that it almost always happens at night when you can't really see what's going on,very nerve racking especially when you can hear a bunch of trees crashing down all around you.
It seemed like the wind was never going to stop.Up until then I had never experienced a hurricane and much like Idontcare... I was always excited when one was churning in the Atlantic,but not anymore!!!
We were without power for about 2 weeks also,my neighbors and I were sitting outside and everyone was looking for the power trucks,we got very excited when we seen one pull into our street!!!! That power company came from South Carolina,after a while they left and we all went inside to turn on the power.
When I did there was a huge bang and the whole house smelled weird,it turned out that 220 Volt was sent through instead of the usual 110V :?
So we went without power for another week or so plus the TV,VCR were history.
We even drove to the Neusse River bridge on Covered Bridge Rd. to get some water in buckets to flush the toilet with.
I don't understand why by slowl but surely powerlines are not all put underground,I know that there would be a big cost involved to convert them from being above ground to under ground but then again there is a lot of money being spend each time a storm comes through and power companies from as far away as Florida have to fix the above ground lines.

 

Yep, we lost a lot of trees too, but thankfully none on the house. We tried sticking it out at the house a few days, but it was SO hot and humid that after doing yard clean-up, me and the kids went to stay w/ in-laws in Garner, dh slept at the house for security reasons. Thankfully I was able to take my kids to work w/ me, otherwise don't know what I would've done. No power for 2 wks... I cried when I saw the power trucks pull up in our neighborhood!

 

These are all amazing stories, I love hearing them. (don't wish anything bad on anyone though) We first thought about moving here April of the next year, so when we came down to visit, there were still huge (and I mean huge!) uprooted trees all over the place that were left by Fran.

I'm like the OP, I am amazed by weather, storms, all of that. I don't want people to get hurt or lose their houses at all, but am just amazed at what a storm can do. Very sad, for sure. We ended up moving here in July that summer, and laughed we are probably the only people that wouldn't get scared away by what we saw...:lol:

 

FRAN - Was in N Raleigh and had met DH July 25th, so we were still at seperate places but I had spent the night at his place, leaving 3 cats, 1 ferret and Shelby at my condo. Got up the next morning and walked home. It was only about 5 miles. Babies were safe, house was fine, nothing messed up.

FLOYD - DH and I lived in Wilmington during Floyd - that was a mess. Nothing damaged, just a HUGE pine tree across the front yard and WATER, god the WATER. Flooding everywhere. Whadda you do when the powers out for so long? :twisted: 9 mos later = babies. (not for me you silly people)

BONNIE - DH and I were still in Wilmington at that time, went to mom & dads place at HI to help them clean up thier beach house. No damage to our house in Wilmington.


I don't like storms.

 

Well when Fran hit NC I was actually living in Florida. I had made plans and booked a flight back to NC for a family visit in April of that year. Wouldn't ya know Fran hit the day before my flight came in to the J'ville airport? I didn't even know if anyone would be there to pick me up because I couldn't get a hold of my mother.

Yeah.... 4 days of my 7 day "vacation" was spent with no electricity, no hot water and helping my mother clear out pine trees from her yard. GREEEAAAT vacation :? But was happy nobody was hurt or worse.........

 

When Fran hit we we in an apartment waiting for our house to be completed. We were on a little hill with good drainage and an apartment above us to take any tree hits so I went to sleep until the eye passed. I then went out to check on things. A couple of trees in the roof of the upstairs apartment across the hallway was the only damage to our building. I went out to check on some of the properties and had an interesting time getting through with trees down in the main roads and cars buried up in them. Helped a deputy get one woman out of her car. She was bracketed by limbs and the car was hung on something. Used my chainsaw to cut enough limbs away to get her out. By that time the backside of the storm was here and the side roads were beginning to flood some. I checked one building, which had no damage and headed back. Barely made it through two places which were slightly flooded going out but were almost too high for the truck coming back. By the time the storm had passed we broke out the grille and fixed pancakes before going to check on the new house, which was not hurt. A neighboring house had one wall blown down and the construction was delayed more than 4 months more than planned, but it was all good. Learned that dry ice (we have a supply at the lab) does work for freezers but not refrigerators becauce too much of the food absorbs the CO2. Eggs and tea taste like crap after they absorb the CO2.

 

I was living by myself in a duplex in Four Oaks at the time. I was gonna be tough and stay there by myself because I didn't think it would amount to anything. My dad and brothers were on the fire dept at that time and when things started getting really bad one of my brothers came and got me. On the way to my parents we had trees falling in front of the truck and one even fell on it. Was very scarey. It finally got so bad that they called all the firemen back in. When I got back home the next day the only tree in my yard that fell, fell on my car. It was totalled. But I was very fortunate that I had my lights on the next day. Something about being so close to the fire dept and rescue building. Those were first priority to have power. I had lots of friends and family coming in taking showers. I remember the grocery stores opened and they checked you out the old fashion way. I ended up helping pass out ice at the fire station. My parents went well over 2 weeks without power. They ended up having to call. The power company forgot their road.
After the storm we had a baby squirrel in the yard. My sister got him and took him home. She lived with my parents at that time. They named him Fran but he kind of looked like our resident squirrel on here. He ended up living in the house for 6 yrs. His favorite spot to it was in daddy's pockets. He loved pop tarts and tea and he loved playing with the cats and dog. He is buried in the back yard with a squirrel statue for his tomb stone.
Anyway, I hope we never have another storm as bad as Fran.